


Sparring Partners (the break up to make up remix)

by Netgirl_y2k



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/F, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:25:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having a nice druid girlfriend mellows Morgana a bit. Not much, but a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sparring Partners (the break up to make up remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sparring Partners](https://archiveofourown.org/works/45704) by [sophinisba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba). 



Forridel nudged open the door to the cottage. Morgana insisted on calling it a hovel, Forridel said that it wasn't really all that bad, and anyway if Morgana would just make up with Aglain she could come back to the settlement. Or she could even make nice with the king and queen and go back to Camelot for a time.

Forridel wasn't all the way through the door when she was slammed up against the wall, a coil of magic around her throat. 

"Honey, I'm home," she croaked out. 

"Oh, it's you," said Morgana, banishing the magical bonds with a lackadaisical wave of her hand. 

"I just love violent women," Forridel muttered, massaging her throat. More to see the regret flash across Morgana's face than because it actually hurt. 

Their entire relationship was predicated on violence. They'd met over swords and daggers in a blacksmith's shop, and courted by sparring in the woods. If you could call wrestling each other down onto the grass and leaves and accidentally-on-purpose ripping skirts and bodices courting. 

They had only recently started sparring again, and since Morgana's powers had manifested in such a dramatic fashion she was out of practice with just plain steel. Forridel could beat her more often than not, which was worth it just to see the fantastic snits Morgana would work herself up to. Morgana was beautiful when she was angry, Forridel just wished she was less, you know, angry when she was angry.

"I didn't think you'd be home until later," said Morgana, turning to stoke the fire. 

"I thought you might want to join us at the settlement tonight. The king and queen are coming for a meeting with Aglain."

"Will _he_ be there?"

"Emrys will be doing us the honour of joining us," Forridel said. The fire flared in its grate and she could hear crockery in the next room shattering. 

Okay, maybe "honouring" had been going too far, but Morgana really was very beautiful when she was angry. 

"He tried to kill me--" this was the start of Morgana's litany of Things I Hate About Merlin, Forridel had heard it many times before and donned her best blank-yet-attentive expression "--just because I disagreed with his ridiculous let's wait until Uther dies of old age and bugger everyone he'll kill in the meantime plan--"

To hear Merlin tell that story it'd had more to do with a sleeping spell and the possibility of Morgana and her sister butchering people in their beds. Forridel suspected the truth was somewhere closer to the middle. 

Merlin and Morgana were depressingly identical on that front, they both had different (little-to-no) morals from most people. Forridel secretly suspected that destiny had, largely out of self-preservation, introduced her and Freya to the situation as an attempt at damage limitation. 

"--He killed my sister, which you never understood because you never liked her!"

Blank-yet-attentive. Forridel _had_ never liked the swaggering blonde sorceress, or the effect that she'd had on Morgana. She still remembered the smirk on Morgause's face during Morgana and Forridel's screaming breakup when Morgana had informed her of her plan to take Camelot by force and install herself as queen. 

Forridel had left Morgana out of one part jealousy over the way she looked at Morgause to nine parts "what are you doing, you crazy lunatic!?" She'd left Camelot for the Druid settlements in the south where she'd sworn off all women, or at least off temperamental noblewomen who looked entirely too good with a sword in their hands for their (and Forridel's) own good.

When Forridel eventually came home everything had changed. Uther was dead, Morgause was dying, and Arthur was king. And Morgana was more in need of a friend than anyone Forridel had ever met in her life. And it was a short hop from friendship, to sparring, to, um, _sparring_.

"--And now he sits by my brother's throne whispering into his ear--"

The thing was, as often as he'd saved her life, and as much as she liked him personally, Morgana wasn't entirely wrong about Merlin. There was something slightly... unseemly about him being the only voice for magic in Arthur's Camelot. But as far as Forridel was concerned the solution to this was for the rest of them to speak loudly enough that the king had to listen, not to sit in the woods sulking about it. Although she would let Aglain make that last point to Morgana as he wasn't the one who might end up sleeping on the floor instead of in the nice warm bed. 

"You should come tonight," said Forridel, catching Morgana's wrist and pulling her close, "I could make it worth your while."

Forridel knew that she was setting herself up for an evening of refereeing round eight hundred and twelve of Morgana v. Merlin, and fielding baffled questions about their relationship from everyone from Queen Guinevere down. And while spending another evening in the cottage distracting Morgana with swords and sex sounded exceptionally appealing, this was better. In the long run, and as much as everyone who wasn't Aglain or Guinevere hated it, them all sitting down and talking was the only way Albion was ever going to change for the better.

"Well, when you put it that way," said Morgana.


End file.
